Debate highlights absurdity of our health care system

THE BROUHAHA over the Obama administration’s attempt to require contraceptive coverage in employee health insurance offered by Catholic hospitals and universities highlights once again the idiocy of a health care system that requires every employer in the country to be in the health insurance business.

Our nonsensical linkage of health coverage to employment not only means that you lose your health coverage when you lose your job, it creates endless opportunities for us to have silly arguments such as the one now playing out. These issues would largely go away if we went with a single-payer plan instead, and it would be less expensive because we would get the profiteering middlemen out of the picture.